


Kyle's Turn

by chelseagirl



Series: Alias Investigations [3]
Category: Alias Smith and Jones
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2019-05-02 04:05:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14536260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chelseagirl/pseuds/chelseagirl
Summary: When an urgent telegram reaches Heyes and Curry Security and Investigations, only Kyle Murtry is there to receive it.   What happens next is . . .  Kyle's turn.





	Kyle's Turn

**Author's Note:**

> This story contains plentiful references to Kid Curry, Hannibal Heyes, Wheat Carlson, and a number of the original characters from the Ella and Alias Investigations series. But onstage, we really only have Kyle, a sheriff, and some suspects.
> 
> Thanks to Nebraska Wildfire and Grace Williams for beta-ing.
> 
> I hope you enjoy reading this half as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Kyle Murtry yawned and stretched. It was still kind of strange to have a room to himself after all those years in the bunkhouse at Devil’s Hole, but it was nice. The boarding house he lived in now was run by a pair of elderly ladies, on the outskirts of Blue Sky, Montana. It advertised itself as a “genteel boarding house” but it was also the only place in town that rented rooms, other than the Grand Hotel, so it took all kinds, genteel or not. Kyle was pretty sure he fell in the category of not.

He couldn’t complain about work, either. Heyes & Curry Security Services kept him busy enough. His bosses brought him along or else sent him on jobs pretty frequently, and most often, he managed to make them proud. Or at least to not embarrass them, which wasn’t too bad, either. Just the other week, he’d found himself riding with an armored train car, transporting gold and other valuables from Denver all the way to Chicago. He laughed to think of himself on this side of a train job, though the rumor that H & C was involved had probably kept prospective train robbers away, in any case.

Kyle looked around the room with some complacency (not a word he actually knew) – the neat oak dresser, the mahogany bedstead, and the pine table. It had been decorated with a young lady tenant in mind, or maybe an old maid, but he liked the flowery wallpaper and the lace doilies that were placed nearly everywhere. They reminded him of his granny’s place, before she’d died and he’d had to make his way in the world. Where he’d made his way to, of course, was Devil’s Hole. But if Wheat ever managed to come for a visit, well, he’d have a thing or two to say about it, that was for certain. Then Kyle would have to pretend he agreed it was too fussy for a manly man like himself. 

On the other hand, Wheat was still wanted, so paying social calls wasn’t something he could do too easily. Once or twice a year they managed to meet up in some town or other that was even smaller and more out of the way than Blue Sky. Wheat would try to convince Kyle to return to the gang, and Kyle would suggest that if Heyes and Curry could get an amnesty, and Kyle get straight with the law, too, then why not Wheat? After all, the Devil’s Hole Gang was a lot smaller-time now than it had been under Curry and Heyes.

Generally, that would make Wheat mad, but he couldn’t stay mad at Kyle for long. Anyway, it was true, and Wheat knew it as well as anyone.

Crossing to the washstand, he poured water from the pitcher into the basin, before splashing it on his face. Should he shave today? It had been two days, and he had a little stubble, but it made him look a little tougher, he’d always thought. He ran his fingers through his eternally disheveled blond hair. He grabbed his jacket and popped on his hat, and he was on his way to the office.

The office. Kyle still got a bit of a thrill every time he said it. Never in his wildest imaginings had he ever thought he’d have an office to go to.

Miss Betsy waved goodbye to him on his way out the door. “Will you be home for dinner tonight, Mister Murtry?” asked the boardinghouse keeper.

“Ain’t sure, as usual, Miss Betsy. Set a place for me, just in case?”

“Will do, Mister Murtry.” Getting called “Mister” was not losing any of its charms, either.

The offices of Heyes and Curry Security Services were on the main street of Blue Sky, rather unoriginally called Main Street. They were across the street and up a few doors from the Law Offices of Chadwick and Heyes, that other Heyes being Heyes’ missus. She was a nice lady, but sometimes she got a little bit impatient with Kyle, with him not always catching onto things too quickly. Well, obviously she was real smart herself or she likely wouldn’t have kept Heyes’ interest long enough for him to have married her in the first place, or to have stuck around through all the ups and downs. In fact, both Heyes and Curry had taken to the married state real well, and that was not something Kyle would have predicted, knowing them in their Devil’s Hole days like he did.

When they’d first set up the offices, late last summer, Curry and Heyes had sent Kyle back to Blue Sky, on his own, with instructions on how to set everything up. Written and everything, and Kyle could read, not that he was a great reader, but he could read them. But he’d put the handwritten instructions down on the bar, when he stopped off at the Blue Sky Saloon to wet his whistle on the way back from the train. They’d ended up in a puddle of beer, with the ink all run, so that he couldn’t even half read them anymore. And he just couldn’t remember what they’d said before. He’d gathered his courage and gone to Missus Heyes with his problem, his employers being out of town and all. Kyle could see she was making a real effort to be patient, but it was pretty obvious what she thought of the situation. So he’d been relieved when Jeremy Chadwick, her law partner, had stepped in and helped out.

Well, Jeremy’d done all the work, to be honest, and Kyle was real appreciative. Ever since then, they’d been friends. Jeremy had four little ones at home, and much to their dismay, he and his pretty wife Melanie had just discovered that she was expecting, again. Between spending his days with his lady law partner and his nights with his family, Jeremy needed a little manly time now and again. So he and Kyle had gotten into the habit of stopping off at the Blue Sky Saloon for a beer or two, or maybe a whiskey, a couple of times a week. Never more than that for Jeremy, who on nights he didn’t have to work late, liked to be home for dinner and to tuck the littlest ones into bed. But Kyle usually stayed on. Being frequently seen with one of the town’s leading citizens like that, combined with the aura of notoriety that came from his other associations, meant that Kyle was becoming popular in town. There was even a saloon girl, Rita, who always made time for him when he showed the inclination. Kyle didn’t expect that she was really sweet on him, or anything. Still, she did like him well enough as a paying customer, especially now that Heyes’ and the Kid’s habit of regular bathing had rubbed off on him.

The H & C office was managed by Gloria Rasmussen, who’d helped Heyes and Curry out of a jam when they were managing a casino down in San Francisco, a few years back. The auburn-haired beauty had been a saloon girl then, and she’d pulled herself out of that life, but sometimes had trouble finding suitable work afterwards. Having come to Blue Sky on a visit to the Heyeses and Currys, she’d fallen in love with Sven Rasmussen, the giant Swede who served as deputy sheriff but also as singing teacher to many of the ladies and children in town. So she’d stayed, and got married, and taken the job. Gloria and Sven sang together in church on Sundays, and Kyle had even stopped by a couple of times to hear them, though he’d made his excuses as quickly as he could when Reverend Moore had tried to talk to him after service.

Kyle helped Gloria out a little bit around the office when he didn’t have any other work. Right now, he was trying to master the intricacies of her filing system, which was largely alphabetical, but still stumped him at times. But, he had to admit, that was largely due to his mixing up certain things, like whether J came before or after K, and likewise for N and M.

Today, however, as soon as Kyle got in, Miz Gloria had to run off and help out Melanie Chadwick, who wasn’t feeling her best and had those four little ones at home. But things were quiet, and Kyle figured he could take the reins and keep things in line, at least until Gloria was relieved by Sandy Curry at lunchtime.

Well, things were quiet, until they weren’t.

First of all, there were half a dozen telegrams, which arrived all together. Kyle scanned through them, sometimes sounding out the words he wasn’t familiar with. One was from Harry Briscoe, the Bannerman man who had inexplicably befriended Heyes and Curry when they were working towards the amnesty. That could wait. Another was from Heyes himself, saying that he and the Kid had been delayed on one of their consultations, and that they’d be home in two days’ time instead of tomorrow. Two others were from banks in other territories and states, asking to schedule consultations in no particular hurry, and a third was from a young lady in Butte who thought they might help her locate her missing puppy. Kyle thought about whether Heyes, one time so-called champeen tracker of Southern Utah, might be able to help her. He kept it on the pile.

But the final telegram was marked urgent.

It was from a town not two hours’ ride away, and apparently, the sheriff was holding four people on suspicion of theft and embezzlement from the bank most of them worked for. The problem was that he didn’t want to let them go, and couldn’t hold them much longer. Could Heyes or Curry come soon? He was sure their experience would be invaluable.

Of course, that’s not what the telegram said, as that would have been prohibitively expensive to send. (Prohibitively is not a word that Kyle knew, either, but that was the gist of what he was thinking.) What it actually said was: NEED CONSULTATION H OR C. 4 SUSPECTS BANK EMBEZZLEMENT COME SOONEST. PAULSON, SHERIFF MILLERS CREEK.

Wheat always used to tell him that he should take more initiative. Of course, Heyes and Curry and Miz Gloria always told him that it was okay, Kyle, don’t worry yourself. They’d let him know what they needed him to do. But for some reason, what kept coming up for Kyle was the initiative part. Leaving a note for Gloria, he locked up the office, retrieved his horse from the livery stable, and was on his way.

When he rode into town, having gotten lost only twice on the way, he asked a friendly-looking passerby where the sheriff’s office was. Tying up his horse outside, he walked in and introduced himself.

“’Lo,” he said. “I’m here from Heyes and Curry Security. Kyle Murtry’s the name.”

The sheriff looked at him, eyeing him up and down. “Mister Heyes and Mister Curry not available?”

“They’re on the road, won’t be back for a couple more days, yet. You weren’t so far away, and I thought I’d come by, see if I could help out meanwhile.”

“Well . . .” said the sheriff, dubiously. “Why not? And . . . they’ll come later if you can’t . . . “

Kyle nodded. “’Course they will. But you’re in good hands, Sheriff Paulson, just never you mind.” He peered towards the back room. “So, you got ‘em all locked up?”

Paulson shook his head. “Out on bail, and warned that any attempt to leave town will be taken as an admission of guilt. Bank’s closed, temporarily, while we’re investigating. But I can get them together within an hour. What do you think, here or the bank?”

Honestly, Kyle hadn’t the slightest notion which would be better. But he thought about times he’d been along with his bosses on site visits which had turned into crime scene investigations, and he knew they could tell a lot from the place itself. What, he wasn’t quite sure. He ran through the kinds of things that Curry’d pointed out, or that had led Heyes to some kind of conclusion. “The bank,” he said, with more confidence than he felt. “Seein’ ‘em in the place where it happened, that oughta give us some ideas ‘bout what it was.”

“Smart thinking,” said the sheriff, looking only slightly surprised.

An hour later, seven people had gathered in the Miller’s Creek Bank: Sheriff Paulson, his deputy, Kyle, and the four suspects.

“This is absurd!” said the bank’s owner and proprietor, Harris Townsend. He was an elderly man who combed what remained of his grey hair carefully back over his bald spot. “Utterly ridiculous.” He was seated in a comfortable armchair that was usually reserved for waiting clients. “Why would I steal from myself?” But the answer was obvious, even to Kyle: to get his hands on his depositors’ money.

“I need to get home to my father,” said the teller, a middle-aged woman named Amelia Parish. She was almost pretty, but not quite. “He can’t be left on his own for very long, and my mother has errands to run.” She fiddled with her spectacles.

“Let’s just let the man do his job,” said the assistant manager, Peter Bradley. He was younger than the others, and seemed somehow more serious about things. Everyone who knew him, Paulson had told Kyle, was sure he wouldn’t spend his entire life in a small town like Miller’s Creek.

The final suspect, Douglas Stone, did not bother to complain. He just glared. He was the only one of the four who was simply a depositor. He’d been caught up in the net because he’d spent considerable time with his safety deposit box that day, and could easily have had access to things he oughtn’t to have had. Besides, one of his several professions was as locksmith.

Kyle whispered to the sheriff, who looked skeptically at his four suspects.

“You sure, Mister Murtry?” he asked.

Kyle really could not get enough of that “Mister Murtry.” “I am positive,” he said, sounding far more certain than he actually felt.

And while the deputy stood guard over the remaining suspects, one at a time, they were led into the back office, where the sheriff and Kyle asked each of them one simple question.

“Okay,” said Kyle, “you look like an honest man” (or woman, in Miss Parish’s case). “I’m willin’ to believe it weren’t you that done it. So who d’you think did?”

One after another, Harris Townsend, Amelia Parish, Peter Bradley, and Douglas Stone, answered the question. And each of them sought to pin the blame on someone else.

When Stone was led out, the sheriff turned to Kyle. “Do you have any theories, Mister Murtry?”

“Oh yeah,” he said. “I know who done it.” But when he told the sheriff, at first he did not believe it.

“Amelia Parish? But she’s as honest as the day is long. She even teaches Sunday school!”

Kyle gave the sheriff what he hoped was a sagacious look. He also hoped he knew what sagacious meant – Heyes had once told him it meant wise. Otherwise he would have thought it had something to do with sagebrush. “Now, I’m not such a good card player as Hannibal Heyes, but I do know a tell when I see one. Reason I asked them to pin the crime on someone else was to see how they’d react.”

“And what did you learn?”

“The three men were so mad, they were ready to pin the crime on the first person they could think of. But all they done was bluster about someone they didn’t like. Townsend thinks Bradley is showin’ him up, Bradley clearly don’t like Stone, and Stone don’t like anybody. Miss Parish, on the other hand, was cool and calm and collected. She’d thought things through right smart-like.”

The sheriff nodded. “She’s been having a rough time, lately, with her parents’ health failing and all. Must be tough being around all this money, all day, when you’re having a hard time paying the bills.”

“She seems like a nice lady,” agreed Kyle. “I c’n tell you from former experience that a lot of lawbreakers ain’t bad folks, ‘cept about that one thing.”

Paulson looked skeptical.

“Y’ever met Heyes or Curry? Two nicer fellas, you’ll never meet. But they was real good at what they done, ‘til they stopped doin’ it.”

“Haven’t met them. I was looking forward to it,” said the sheriff, perhaps more pointedly than he’d intended.

“You will, if ya want to. Missus Curry does some real nice Sunday dinners, if you c’n get away sometime? I’m sure they wouldn’t mind if I brung you along.” Kyle’s essentially sunny nature was winning Paulson over. “So, you arrestin’ the lady?”

“Dunno. Her mother’s still getting out a bit, but that’s getting harder. And her father’s a complete invalid. Who’ll take care of them, if she’s in prison?”

“Kinda sounds like she’s in prison, already.”

“Her parents are good people, but she’s had to take care of them since her father’s accident, shortly after they came out this way. That was fifteen years ago. Her sweetheart married someone else, someone who’d put him first, and . . . “

“Ain’t there a thing called resti . . . restitituency? No, that ain’t right.”

“Restitution. She makes good on what she stole?”

“Could do, yeah?”

“She’d still be out of a job. I don’t know how that family can carry on much longer.”

That was a puzzler. Kyle frowned. “Nobody else in town got work going?”

“Might do, but now she’ll be known as dishonest. And with her father’s health, and her mother’s forgetfulness, they can’t really go somewhere else to start fresh.”

“Less we handle this private-like?”

“Kyle, I’m the sheriff, I can’t . . . “

“Well, you just got my word for it, and I ain’t exactly the . . . well, my granny always used to say I hadn’t got the sense God gave a goose. So you could argue that I got it wrong.”

The sheriff thought for a moment. “But I don’t think you did.”

“Right, but you ain’t got any proof ‘cept my word for it. Maybe I could have a private word with her?”

“How we gonna do that and not attract attention from the others?”

Kyle smiled slyly. “I have an idea ‘bout that.”

*****

One by one, each of the suspects was marched back into the sheriff’s office. After the meetings, each of them went home, still under strict warning about not leaving town. Miss Amelia Parish sat there fretting about her parents the whole while. When, finally, she was called in, last of all, the sheriff discovered that he’d forgotten an important appointment, and that he needed to deal with the situation immediately.

Conveniently, Mr. Murtry from H & C Security Services was right there, to continue the proceedings.

It didn’t take them long to reach an understanding.

When Sheriff Paulson returned, a few hours later, Kyle was gone, and the bank was locked up tight. The next morning, the money was sitting in the vault, as though it had never been missing at all. Everyone was relieved, and determined not to ask any further questions.

The next Saturday, the sheriff went by the bank, and asked Miss Parish if she’d have supper with him.

She declined, but a few months later, it was she who invited him to supper. By the time her parents weren’t able to be on their own at all, Amelia Paulson was able to quit her job at the bank to look after them, and in time a grandchild joined them. Just one, as she was no longer a young woman, but that one was loved and cherished by his parents and grandparents beyond all measure, because he’d come long after any expectations had faded.

And word got around that maybe that strange little blond man who worked with Heyes and Curry wasn’t quite so simpleminded as he came across. Sometimes when folks telegraphed the office, looking for help, they even asked for Mister Murtry by name.

And Kyle just couldn’t get enough of that.


End file.
